Blogging Business Plan Part 1

OK, so you’ve been blogging for a while and you’re thinking how can I make a living from this or at least how can I make Starbucks money from this?

There are many different ways. Advertising, ad networks, sponsored posts, etc. But what you don’t want to do is go after things willy-nilly. You want to be strategic and focused. That calls for a plan.

A business plan.

But don’t let it scare you!

I know you’ve heard the cliché, “Failing to plan is planning to fail” and there’s a reason you’ve heard it. Because as trite as it might seem, it’s true.

The business plan is just that. A plan on how you’re going to achieve your dreams. It tells you how you’re going to reach your goals and keeps you on track to them, which is much better than having a nebulous idea of where you are and where you want to be. You also need to measure results or the lack thereof, and without a plan and goals you can’t accurately do that.

But before you start writing your business plan you need to have goals. What is it you really want to accomplish here?

I’m a firm believer in writing down your goals to make them a reality. I think this step is very important. You may have heard of the Harvard Business School story about writing down goals:

“A study conducted on students in the 1979 Harvard MBA program stated that in that year, the students were asked, “Have you set clear, written goals for your future and made plans to accomplish them?”

Only three percent of the graduates had written goals and plans; 13 percent had goals, but they were not in writing; and a whopping 84 percent had no specific goals at all.”

Ten years later, the members of the class were interviewed again, and the findings, while somewhat predictable, were nonetheless astonishing. The 13 percent of the class who had goals were earning, on average, twice as much as the 84 percent who had no goals at all. And what about the three percent who had clear, written goals? They were earning, on average, ten times as much as the other 97 percent put together.”

The moral of the story is it’s not just enough to dream it, but you MUST write it down, imagine it, and believe it can happen, for a better chance of it actually happening. I’m not trying to get all new-agey on you but the mind is a powerful thing and if you don’t focus your mind on the goal by envisioning your dream as a reality it will have a less likely chance of happening. If you think I’m crazy, then read The Secret or The Law of Attraction. Being positive and focused gets you closer to your dreams.

This is the 1st of a 3 part series on writing your business plan. Between now and next Wednesday I want you to write down your business goals then next week we will talk about putting them in a plan.

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